


Down to the Wire

by NervousAsexual



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Episode: s02e22 The Wire, Impersonation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 05:25:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15923780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: When Dr. Bashir leaves to confront Enabran Tain, Odo makes his last play against Garak and the four unsolved murders whose answers he may hold.





	Down to the Wire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [guardianofdragonlore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/guardianofdragonlore/gifts).



The doctor thought he was being covert, evidently. He left the medbay at a seemingly randomly-selected time in the early morning hours, slipped down to the least-patrolled docking bay, and took off in an apparently stolen runabout.

Ordinarily Odo would have stowed away on this runabout in the shape of a spare tricorder or something, but this was no ordinary day.

His last good suspect was dying.

As expected Dr. Bashir had left a nurse sitting guard outside of the sickbay, but that was hardly the obstacle he thought it should be. It was all well and good for Bashir to tell Odo to keep his distance; he was the CMO, after all, and seemed to think this was some kind of holonovel in which he was the rebellious hero. The nurse he left in charge, however, did not rank quite so highly. She was Bajoran, had been on the station since the Terok Nor days, and she knew enough about Odo and enough about Garak that all he had to do was nod to her and she let him pass.

The sickbay was quiet. The monitors around the room cast off a faint pinkish glow, designed to avoid stimulating a patient's sleep cycle into a reset. The doctor had left open his personal monitor with a mostly unintelligible jumble of info on Cardassian leukocytes displayed, and beside it, still as the dead on the primary exam table, lay Garak.

"Hmph." He sidestepped the table to better see the monitor. While his medical knowledge was admittedly limited, nothing on the screen looked particularly auspicious. Of course, that the Cardassian was unwell was evident just to look at him. His scales were ashy and flaking, his tail looked as if it were broken, and, written in Dr Bashir's handwriting and circled once, a scrap of paper was discarded beside him. It read, "Enabran Tain."

Ah. So it was like that.

The note brought a new potential angle to Odo's plan. He watched Garak breathing as he considered. There was no reason for Dr. Bashir to be looking into a long-retired man from the Arawath colony unless his name had come up. He may well have gotten the name from Garak. It stood to reason, especially with the Obsidian Order involved, that there was some connection between Garak and Tain.

Garak made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a gasp.

Odo made a quick search on his Padd. It was certainly worth a try. He let himself relax for a moment into the comforting mass, then quickly shored himself up into a heavyset elderly Cardassian.

Close enough, he decided, examining his reflection in the monitor. A dying man in poor light would hopefully overlook the usual flaws in nose shape and change of proportions over the passage of time.

He turned down the sedation and waited.

Garak was slow to come back around--unsurprising, given his condition. Odo doubted very much he would care to be conscious under the same circumstances. After some time, though, Garak opened his eyes and looked quietly up at him.

A twinge of something went through Odo as he looked down at the dying man. Not guilt, though. There was every reason to suspect Garak of murder, and tricking a murderer rated below monitoring Quark's interstellar comms on the list of dubiously legal things that Quark felt bad about.

It wasn't sentiment, he decided. Odo felt sentiment for few things, and Cardassians weren't among them.

"It's been a long time, Elim," he said in the most authoritative voice he could command.

"Mm." A small smile flitted briefly across Garak's face.

"You still miss Cardassia." He didn't phrase it as a question. That much was obvious to the most disinterested observer.

Garak's eyes closed and open, a small nod.

"And here you are. Dying without ever returning home." He paused, trying to decide how best to phrase what he wanted. "If you had the choice, wouldn't you prefer to die on Cardassia?"

Garak looked at him, but his eyes seemed to be focused on something far off in the distance.

"I can make that happen. You know I have that power."

"Mmhm." It seemed to be a noise of agreement, but much higher than Garak's usual voice.

"I've been reflecting on things. Your record, to be precise. Tell me. Do you remember Eerta Keebi?" Bajoran girl. Killed on the eve of the Cardassian withdrawal.

Garak's hand reached out, slowly, hesitantly. Perhaps he was unable to speak, Odo thought. But surely he could still type with assistance. He laid his padd on the table beside him.

Garak's fingers brushed the padd and paused for a moment before moving on. They closed around Odo's hand.

Prophet's pagh, thought Odo. This was not part of the plan.

He knew he should take his hand away--he had none of the answers he was looking for, there wasn't time for this, neither he nor Garak were the type to traffic in this sort of thing--but he watched Garak's eyes close and found he couldn't. Garak's hand was limp and cold in his.

Let go of the alleged spy, he instructed his hand. Instead it squeezed Garak's tighter.

Several more explicit curses crossed Odo's mind, most of them Klingon. He was wasting valuable time. If Garak really was Obsidian Order, he'd been prepared for death. He did not require comfort. Was that not the entire point of the implant in his head?

But the implant was powered down, a small quiet voice reminded him. Bashir was gone, halfway across the system, and Garak was alone on this station full of people who hated him.

"Alright," he growled down to the dying man. If there was something comforting about Enabran Tain he would allow Garak a reprieve.

He tried to think of what would be a Tain-like thing to say. He couldn't be sure how lucid Garak was, and he wanted to maintain this form as much as possible. A member of the Obsidian Order shouldn't be that much of a comfort.

"Don't expect any sort of welcome on Cardassia," he said. "You are still in exile. You will not be set loose on the populace."

At least Garak had a populace to miss, he thought, and immediately turned his attention elsewhere. There was no sense feeling sorry for himself.

"When you think about all you're receiving this is hardly a fair trade. But you have information that I want, and if you are willing to part with it I am willing to do what I can to get you home." He rubbed his thumb across Garak's knuckles and suddenly realized what he had said. "To Cardassia. To do what I can to get you to Cardassia. Never mind. I'm going to turn the sedation back up."

He leaned over to adjust the drip feeding the sedative into Garak's veins, and Garak squeezed his hand.

"Thank you, constable," he murmured, and Odo felt less angry than he would have thought.


End file.
